How Dr. McDreamy nearly stole my wife

It was an eventful weekend for the Cook family, complete with a sick baby, sick parents, skull fractures and a trip to the emergency room.

The full recap is available here, but the short of it is that mom, dad and baby Susan all had a stomach bug, mom fainted at urgent care, broke several bones in her skull and spent the night in the hospital.

We’re all back home now and my wife is doing slightly better, but she’s still out of commission for the foreseeable future. Doctors determined that dehydration from effects of the stomach bug caused her to faint and that her head hit the ground so hard it caused a temporal bone fracture. Thank goodness for the wonderful doctors at Duke…one in particular.

While my wife was concussed and lying on a bed in triage, a slew of doctors and nurses came through checking her vitals, mumbling medical jargon and giving veiled suggestions that things would be ok. They told us that a neurosurgeon would be in to discuss the brain-related consequences of the fall. I tried, in vain, to keep my wife’s spirits up as she lay on the bed and said little more than “yes,” “no,” “my head hurts,” and “uhhhhh.” For one of the few times since our relationship began, I couldn’t get a laugh or even the smallest of smiles out of her.

And then in walked the neurosurgeon, or God’s gift to ailing women in the hospital. He looked like he walked right off the set of Grey’s Anatomy.

“I’m Dr. So-and-So, neurosurgery resident,” he said. He was wearing one of those blue doctor skull-caps and had an impeccable 5 o’clock shadow. He probably wasn’t able to shave because he’d spent the last six hours in surgery removing a deadly tumor from a man’s brain. My wife was wide-eyed. I looked down at my baby snot-covered t-shirt and three-day-old sick pants and regretted my decision to embark on a career in college athletics instead of brain surgery.

“I’m going to run a few tests to make sure everything in your head is working like it should,” he said.

“OK!” my wife said, smiling like she was there for a hangnail instead of brain trauma.

“Stick out your tongue.”

She stuck it out. And giggled.

“Now smile.”

Boy, did she smile.

“And squeeze my hands.”

The heart monitor went nuts. Enrique Iglesias sang softly in the background. Somewhere Shonda Rhymes got an idea for another spinoff.

There were other tests, none of which included “now kiss me on the cheek,” which is good because she would have done it. The good doctor was pleased with the results, told my wife she was going to be fine and walked out (my wife’s heart in tow), never to be seen again. Thank goodness, because I just can’t compete with that.

“Well, you look like you feel a lot better after that,” I said. I expected my wife to downplay the incident, deny flirting with the man, and so on. She didn’t.

“I almost called him Dr. McDreamy,” she said, gazing at the ceiling like a 12-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. If she had a pen and paper, she would have played MASH and planned out their future in a mansion with three children, a Rolls Royce and a dog named Bongo. But for the first time in two days, she smiled, which was wonderful because I thought the head injury may have knocked out that part of her brain. I guess Dr. McDreamy had just the medicine she needed.

The rest of the day, I tried to think of ways that I could outdo Dr. McDreamy and become my wife’s hero again. I ended up just holding her hand and being her personal nurse until we left the next morning, which woefully paled in comparison to Mr. Neusosurgery. But while Dr. McDreamy may have swept my wife off her hospital bed for a few fleeting minutes, I now get to play hero not only to my ailing wife, but to my sick baby the rest of the week. To the victor go the spoils, Dr. McDreamy.

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Ugh, good looking AND a highly accomplished doctor. Hate people like that! 🙂
Glad your wife is going to be OK, and thanks for the laugh!

Danny’s Momma

I clicked the link to read the whole story. How scary! Your wife is super strong but I think you know that now. Hope she heals fast!

When I was about to give birth to my son, an extremely gorgeous young male doctor came and checked my cervix right in front of my husband. THAT was awkward.

jenj

Hunh. I clicked on this link, because, hey, who doesn’t want to read about a cute doctor? And when I glance at the author, I see Hillsboro, NC. Well, well, well. Hello from Chapel Hill, and how nice it is to know that there’s a dreamy neurosurgeon around here 😉 Glad to hear your wife is doing better…

Cara

I can totally see myself doing the same thing with a gorgeous doctor! LOL

Yeaaaa… I once scared the living daylights out of a model gorgeous medical student who had the bad luck to be observing OBGYN that day. “Do you mind if Dr. Handsomeface performs another exam?” “Only of he says ‘please!’ “

RoxyMamma

I feel for you. My husband has fully developed the “hott taken man” exterior, and as such gets flirted with here and there. He tells me about it because we tell each other everything, but I feel my body’s ruined by child bearing. On top of that I’m pregnant, so who’s going to boost my confidence by flirting with me??
Not exactly the same sitch, but I understand how it made you feel.

Jaci

Do you know what Dr is always good looking? Plastic surgeons. I had a breast reduction and not only was mine good looking, so was his resident, and then post surgery he popped his head in to see if he and his resident could check the incisions. I was still a bit out of it and I heard “resident” singular, and not “residents” plural, so I said sure. Then he and like 11 hot men proceeded to walk in and check out my naked boobs. And they really all were hot. Hubby was laughing because he knew I was mortified, but hey, at least my boobs looked good!

Reneeisafish

Lol mash!!!

bret

to be taken out of reality into a fantasy world is just what your wife needed in this situation. thank heavens for the mcdreamys in the world, whose wives dream about the athletic types 😉

Mrs. Dr.

I am the lucky Mrs. of a surgeon similar to who you are describing. My husband is very handsome and can rock a 5 o’clock shadow like no other. There are few things better than seeing him in his scrubs and surgeon’s cap. Thankfully his patient base is mostly male but I have gotten quite the stink eye from the female nurses and doctors! Makes me appreciate him even more when he comes home to me and our girls each night and is a rockstar dad as well.

Me

I think this should have included a picture of him so we could all appreciate his “talents” 🙂

Tara

This made me laugh, especially thinking about playing MASH. Glad all is well with your wife!

Glad ur family is ok. Scary situation. I can only imagine how horrified u must have felt!

koolchicken

This is so funny. I like to tease my husband and tell him he’s so handsome he could play a doctor on TV. He doesn’t find me funny, but apparently he has been hit on while at work (which is just weird). The nurses tell me he always mentions his wife but I guess it doesn’t deter some people.

And I did once run into one of his patients. It’s always fun/weird to hear “Oh yeah, I know your husband. He gave me a pelvic exam”. To which I naturally responded, “He didn’t tell me about it, but thanks for sharing”!

Lia

haha, another doctor wife here! My doctor of a husband is not drop dead gorgeous, but the fact is that the old ladies he treats all adore him. They bring him little gifts such as pencils (he’s a collector of pencils and has a huge part of his collection in his cabinet, so it’s obvious!) or chocolates for christmas, and even, sometimes, toys for our little one. It’s a joke between us “you and your old ladies”. He is a very calm cardiologist who adresses old people with patience, humour and honesty, and I have witnessed many of them coming out of en exam relieved that they are not dying just yet because if they did the doctor would have told them! Now, I try not to think that maybe they see him as a kind of Dr McDreammy… Not that old ladies don’t fantasize, but, hey, it’s better for me to think that they see him as a son 🙂

June2013 momma

That is too hilarious! That’s awesome that you can laugh at that instead of getting jealous 😉

Sarah Brooks

Wow, Chris. I just read the full recap. How scary for you! I’m glad that she’s going to be okay. I hope she heals quickly (give us an update at some point).

Lindsay

LOVE this article and all of yours, Chris! Makes me laugh every time! You really should think about a book, maybe the father’s version of Jenny McCarthy’s Belly Laughs!